• SUVANNABHUMI
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.49-88
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• 2020

Two utilitarian and symbolic objects associated with womanhood in Cambodian culture are the stove and the pot. The pot is a symbol of both the womb and female sexuality; the stove is a symbol of gendered feminine labor. This article argues that the sexist representations of the Khmer female body by modern Cambodian male artists demonstrate an inherited legacy of Orientalist stereotypes. These images were formed : under French colonialism and often depict Khmer women as erotic/exotic native Others. Starting in the 1970s, however, if not earlier, Cambodian women began to question the gendering of social roles that confined them to domestic space and labor. This form of social questioning was especially present in pop songs. In recent years, contemporary Cambodian woman artists such as Neak Sophal and Tith Kanitha have made use of rice pots and stoves in their art as freighted symbols of femininity. Neak created an installation of rice pots from different households in their village, while Tith rebelled against this gendered role by destroying cooking stoves as an act of defiance against patriarchy in her performance art.

• Human Ecology Research
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• v.51 no.3
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• pp.263-273
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• 2013

The purpose of this research is to examine track suits which appear in mass media and to attempt to understand their embedded symbolism. Hence, a theoretical inquiry and case study on suit tracks were carried out. The case study was confined to the period since 2000, when sportswear emerged as a megatrend in fashion, to 2012. Occurrences of track suits in film, TV dramas, music videos, advertisements, and fashion collections were examined. Research indicated that the track suits in film or TV drama worked as items to give a change to coordination, material and decoration, so that the track suits highlighted the characters in them rather than emphasizing external factors or their own design. They were used as tools to indicate the sensual and dynamical feminine image in the rap and hip hop genres in music video. They also showed the dynamic image of modern woman via advertisements of sports brands. In the case of celebrity fashion, both inside and outside Korea, they introduced the track suits in a comfortable and sensual manner through both official and unofficial image releases. In the fashion collections, transboundary deconstructiveness was strongly expressed in terms of design, material, color, and production method. The case study in this research indicated that the symbolism in track suits was characterized as transboundary deconstruction as well as value in dynamic femininity, and products from reactionary nostalgia.